Resilient - It's Tempting, Part 2

We all struggle at times with behavior patterns that repeat and repeat, and then they so get us down. One of mine is this, I'll see I need to address something in my life, I resolve that I'll do it, I try really hard, and then I fail. Then I feel guilty, so I resolve to try even harder, and then I fail, and then I get so discouraged I don't even want to try. Sound like you?

How do you break that pattern? That's today, stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Chip's our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Druey. We're currently in a series called Resilient, Withstanding the Storms of Life. As much as I'd like to say otherwise, I can identify with the repeat scenario Chip just described.

I guess is, you can too. As we learned in our previous program, we're most likely to fail when we're tired, alone, or stressed. Well, in this program, we're going to get on the solution side of all that, so I'm glad you're here. Chip's teaming up with his son Ryan Ingram, and Ryan began this message in our previous program, but Chip will be with us after the teaching to share some additional thoughts, so be sure to stay with us for that. Okay, let's get going with part two of It's Tempting from James chapter 1.

I think there's two important questions we need to ask here. The progression of sin and temptation. What does this sin full-grown look like in your life? Maybe it's lust.

What does it full-grown look like? Maybe it's lying. Maybe it's gossip. Maybe it's cheating. Maybe it's an addiction.

And right now it's just like, coping to get by in this season. But what does it full-grown look like? And then the second question, what are the ultimate consequences?

When it's full-grown, what are the ultimate consequences? See, we buy into the myth that that could never happen to me. That would never happen to me. I'd never do that. And the truth is, is that's the story of so many people whose lives have been broken and shipwrecked.

That could never happen to me. I learned so much from my dad growing up, and I remember him saying this because as a pastor, he saw other pastors who shipwrecked their life through moral failures. And he never wanted his story to end that way, his ministry to be undermined. And I remember him sharing, actually publicly teaching this as I was sitting and listening to him, and he would literally visualize, this is what he'd say, he visualizes what the ultimate consequences of a moral failure would be. And so he'd visualize and walk this through of having to sit his kids down and go into them, and I'm his kid, so, and going to us and just going, hey, dad's not going to be around, seeing the, visualizing the consequences of his marriage, losing the ministry that he gave his life to build. See, what happens is when we address the progression, we all of a sudden become painfully aware of these hooks.

The shiny doesn't look so attractive anymore. See, what do we do when temptation knocks? We got to recognize the source of temptation and then address the progression.

We got to move beyond the moments and just go, okay, where is this headed? And then he's going to go on to say, identify the lie and bring it into the light. Identify the lie.

I get clear on what is the lie that we're buying into and then bring it into light. That's why he says, and don't be deceived. My dear brothers and sisters, don't be duped. Don't buy into the lie.

Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. See, most of us, I think are not clear about the lies that we believe or have bought into. See the root lie when it comes to temptation and the things we buy into is about God, his character and his word. If you go all the way back to the garden when the enemy, Satan the serpent was, you know, tempting Eve, there's two main things that he wanted to undermine. He said, did God really say you must not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Did he really say it wanting to undermine God's word? But fundamentally what the enemy wants to do is undermine the character of God. God wants to keep you from the knowledge. I think at the root for us of sin and brokenness and temptation is a belief that God isn't good.

It's always an attack on the goodness of God and that we can get good outside of God in his ways. See, he says every good and perfect gift is from your heavenly Father who loves you. He doesn't want to keep good from you. He wants only the very best for you and he's the Father of heavenly lights.

Like bring it into the light. He doesn't change like shifting shadows. He's not changing his mind.

He's not inconsistent. Think about the character of God just in this text alone that James is telling us. One, that God cannot be tempted. He's morally pure. He doesn't tempt anyone. He's not putting things out to try to trip you up.

He wants the very best for you. He's the giver of every good and perfect gift. God doesn't change.

He's absolutely consistent. In fact, in the next verse we're going to see, he is the giver of new life, not death. See, sin births death, creates death. He wants to give you life. See what we think is offering us a good and a way outside of God is actually creating great harm. God says, no, I just want you to experience life. And so identify the lie.

It's always an attack on the character of God and then bring it into the light. Nothing good grows in the dark, by the way. Secrets keep you and I stuck. As long as it stays a secret, you will remain a slave to it.

Nothing good grows in the dark. You got to bring it out into the light. And that's why James was saying in 516, a little bit later on, he said, confess your sins one to another and pray for each other that you may be healed. This is why we do community. You can't afford not to do community.

You were never intended to do this life on your own. And in community of believers who love you and are for you, you bring the real you and say, this is where I'm at. Would you help me?

He says, in that process, God brings healing. Would you identify the lie and bring it into the light? Where you're asking, well, I don't know what exactly to bring into the light.

Well, let me give you maybe a little litmus test. Is there anything in your life that you wouldn't want your wife to find out about or your husband to find out about? Is there anything in your life that you wouldn't want your parents to find out about? Is there anything in your life that you wouldn't want your friends or your mentors to find out about?

Put a little differently. Is there anything in your life that you wouldn't want your pastor to find out about? That's probably the areas where you'd say, man, God, bring that into the light. Get a trusted friend who loves Jesus, who can walk with you through that. And some, I think, just even as we're talking, I want to give a little word of hope in this moment because I think if you're anything like me and that college kid, you just felt so defeated and you felt like this will never change. You feel like you're the only one going through this. The Apostle Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, no temptation has overtaken you or seize you except what's common to mankind.

See we've all been in this, we're all going through this, we're all struggling. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He is faithful.

He's going to meet you right in that moment. If you would just recognize instead of running from God in the middle of that moment, you bring Him into it. But when you're tempted, He'll also provide a way out so that you can endure it. And it's often the community of God around you that is His way out for you. Okay, so what do we do when temptation knocks?

Recognize the source, address the progression, identify the lie, bring it into the light. And finally, we need to remember what is true of you in Christ Jesus. You've got to remember, you've got to reorient your life back to what is fundamentally, foundationally true of you. He says this, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created. He chose, think about this, God chose you.

It wasn't just like, man, I've just kind of got to be a part of this. God says, I chose you to give you new birth. So what God has done, you can't undo.

Have that confidence to give you new life through the word of truth, His gospel in you. Well, you have a spiritual enemy who wants you to live in shame and guilt. Here's how the enemy works, by the way. He likes to set out the lure. We're responsible for biting on it, but he likes to set it out, lure you and go, hey, come on, get this.

And then you bite on it and you're like stuck and you're experiencing all the consequences and you're like, ah. And then you know what he does? The jerk. He's a jerk.

Let's just say it. He's a, yeah, he's a jerk because he's known as the accuser of the saints. And so you know what he does is he entices you and you bite on it and then he accuses you. He goes, how could you? What were you thinking?

Are you kidding me? He accuses you and he wants you to live in shame and guilt. Romans 8, 1 says, therefore there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. See, the accuser is wanting to speak lies to you about who you are to keep you from running to your perfect heavenly father who has every good gift for you. He wants you to keep you hiding.

See that's what Adam and Eve did in the garden. The minute we blow it, we hide. He says, come out of hiding. Come to your heavenly father who loves you. See, remember what's true of you in Christ Jesus. What's true of you is not what the accuser says. No, he's a jerk.

Stop listening to him. What's true of you is that you are adopted into the family of God if you're a follower of Jesus. What's true of you is you are a daughter and the son of the king most high. What's true of you is you have been completely forgiven. There is no condemnation. There is no place for the accuser's word in your life. What's true of you is you are loved unconditionally by a perfect, good, heavenly father. That is what's true of you.

And by the way, that will keep a backside from becoming a landslide. How do you have resiliency in the face of temptation? Friends, you've got to get back to what's true of you in Christ Jesus. I love this quote by John Bunyan.

On Easter Sunday, my kids and I, or our family really, Jennie and I, we watched the Pilgrim's Progress movie, which was great. And he writes this in his autobiography. He says, I never saw those heights and the depths in grace and love and mercy as I saw after this temptation.

Did you catch that? I never saw those heights and depths in grace and love and mercy as I saw after this temptation. Great sin, he says, draw out great grace and where guilt is most terrible and fierce there the mercy of God in Christ when shown to the soul appears most high and mighty. Great sin draws out great grace. I like how Tim Keller says it about the gospel. He says, the gospel is this, we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.

Yet at the same time, yet at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. Remember, remember, get back. Would you get it in your heart? Would you remind yourself the minute the accuser is speaking, you're like, no, that's a lie. You're a jerk.

Shut up. Get what's true of you in your heart and your mind. I remember the turning point for me in my battle with lust as a college student. That idea of shame, that was a reality for me. See shame says this, not that you failed, but you are a failure. It becomes your identity. Not that you, you know, made a mistake, but you are a mistake. And my identity started to become that I'm a failure.

This is who I am and I'll never change. And I began to have such dark thoughts like the world might just be better without me. And it was this heartache, broken moment. And the turning point was actually a dream I had. And I remember having this dream and in my dream, I was walking into my dorm room and as I opened the door, the room was pitch black.

And there was an eight year old child, it was me as a kid, an eight year old me, blonde haired scrawny and the room's completely black, but the computer's on and all you can see is the blue hue of the computer on the kid's face. And I remember in the dream going like, no, no, don't go there. Don't reach out.

You have no idea. You don't understand the hooks that are awaiting you that are going to get into you and the heartache and the pain. And it was the first time that I finally saw myself a little bit the way God sees me, not as a screw up or as a failure, but as this kid. Not that he was mad at me or down on me, but that his heart broke for me and is in that moment where then I finally said, okay, God, I'm going to run to you and bring all of me to you.

Before we go any farther, I literally wanted to interrupt and pause because I think the story that Ryan just told is one of the most important and profound truths that any of us can hear. You see, what happens when we're tempted and then when we fail, we're overwhelmed with guilt and shame. We don't feel acceptable to God.

We don't like ourselves. Those of you that have struggles with addictions, whether it's pornography or a sexual addiction, alcohol, a drug addiction, even a people pleasing addiction, when you have an addiction and you've tried so hard, what he described is what I've heard over and over and over and what I've experienced myself. Shame says it's not that you did something bad, it's that you're a bad person. If you did something bad, then there's forgiveness and there's restoration, but if you're a bad person, there's really no hope for you and those are the lies of the enemy. He is so evil, he will actually trick us and tempt us and then after we fail and do the very thing he wants us to do, then he brings pile after pile of condemnation that makes us feel like we're so unworthy.

The picture that Ryan shared is this truth. Listen very, very carefully. For some of you, this will be a breakthrough moment if you can get it from your head to your heart. Sin, okay, spiritual failure fundamentally is not a behavioral issue, it is a relational issue.

Let me say that again. Sin fundamentally is not a behavioral issue. In other words, it's not what I did or I crossed this line or I went too far with my girlfriend or my boyfriend or I said this or I did that.

It's not a behavioral issue, it's a relational issue. When you move from, I did something bad, okay, I guess I should tell God I'm sorry, I should feel bad for a while, I'll try harder next time, the pattern is going to go on and on and on and on. The story that Ryan shared was a story, a dream that God gave him that reveals that sin is a relational issue. In other words, what he realized was it broke God's heart, that God knows the consequences of sin, that that sin created a divide between Ryan and God. That sin, when I sin and you sin, we know what's right to do and we don't do it. And then we feel so bad and so unworthy. When I finally came to the point that I realized, when I do something wrong, when I think something wrong, when I say something wrong and I know it's wrong, that it makes God sad instead of making him mad, it changes everything.

I'll give you an example. My workaholism was a pattern that I tried to break over and over and over and I could give you lots of details, but it was so deeply ingrained. One of the issues was a very selfish one on my part where my workaholism put a wedge in our relationship and I had a practice that over and over and over and over, I would be late for certain things. My wife had cooked a wonderful dinner and I was late yet again. Instead of being mad at me, crossing her arms as she did, we were in marriage counseling at the time, she had learned instead to express an I-feel message. And I came in ready for another fight, my workaholism kicking in, my guilt, my shame. And as I did, she served a beautiful meal and sat quietly with me and then she looked at me with tears running down her cheek saying, I spent a better part of the day to cook this meal because it's how I say I love you. And when you don't show up, it makes me feel like you don't love me and you don't care.

Now it's one thing to be late, right? It's one thing to, you know, I look at things different than her and I want my way and she wants her way. I will tell you this, when I saw that it broke her heart, when it had to do with love instead of performance or behavior, that was the turning point and I changed. Whose heart are you breaking? Are you ready to change?

God welcomes you. Run to Him today. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip and his son Ryan Ingram are co-teaching this series called Resilient, Withstanding the Storms of Life. Navigating life's storms is never easy, which is why Chip asked Ryan to come and share this message that brings such practical application to the daily challenges. Nature has a powerful voice that influences our attitudes and our thinking. So Ryan's fresh perspective on James Chapter 1 provides the tools we may need to make a few course corrections. For a limited time, resources for Resilient are discounted and the MP3s are always free. Now to order your copy or to send it to a friend, visit us at livingontheedge.org, tap Special Offers on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Chip the teaching today and a struggle with discouragement often go hand in hand. I mean, we've all experienced that to some degree or another. So I just know that we have a lot of brothers and sisters in Christ who are discouraged right now. Your latest book called The Art of Survival has the potential to bring a lot of hope and healing.

Now if someone asked, what would you tell them about it? Dave, what I would say is I think we're all struggling regardless of our background or perspective of discouragement to some degree. And discouragement is really rooted in something called perspective. And we either have God's perspective and we see life through His perspective or we see it through our own lens. And when our problems are very up close to our eye, the whole world looks pretty dark.

And when our problems get pushed back and we see things from a large and big perspective, then we can overcome our discouragement. And the very last chapter in that tiny little book is how to slay the dragon of discouragement. Of all the things I've shared, people have told me over and over and over, one guy said, you know, the first chapter was good.

I really, really liked the second chapter, but the last chapter, that was awesome. That's what got me over the hump. So I would pray that that little book and especially that chapter can help our brothers and sisters that are really struggling with discouragement. It's called The Art of Survival. Art is an acronym, A-R-T. A is the attitude that helps us navigate adversity. R is the resource God offers in adversity. And T is the theology that guides our perspective in adversity. In a world of chaos and confusion, Chip explains there's an art to survival, skills honed by practice that lead to joyful endurance no matter what. If you're looking for a path to perspective and peace, you need to read Chip's new book, The Art of Survival. Get your discounted copy at livingontheedge.org, with the Chip Ingram app, or by calling us at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. I hope you'll do it today. Well, just before we close, we want you to know about an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say, Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll hear that day's extended teaching anytime you want. Well for Chip and everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.